The Heck with Overdrive...

I've got a ton of good O.D.'s... but what I need and don't have: A Distortion machine (Well, a real good sounding one anyway). You know - Sustainy, gain filled, hair machine. I need it for those "Heavier tunes" on the set list. I have never been happy with my real heavy sounds. I tried the Tone Bone HotBritish and liked it in the "store setting." But I'd like to hear some opinions before I think about dropping $200 bucks on something I end up hating live.

boss metal zone MT-2 is what i use. it gets all the hair band stuff and some heavy stuff really well....

boss metal zone MT-2 is what i use. it gets all the hair band stuff and some heavy stuff really well....
Do you know how different that is from the Boss Heavy Metal HM-2? I had that and just could not dial in a sound I liked with that one... can't put my finger on why, harsh mids I think. I'll give the MT-2 a try.

I use a Keeley modded Rat pedal for the heavier stuff. I bought one of the new Rat pedals ( I think it might be called
a Rat 2 ?) but I wasnt too impressed by the lack of bass. It seemed to lose all of the low end, no matter what I set it to. Instead of selling it, I decided to send it to Robert Keeley and have it modifed. Man, what a difference - that thing is now a crazy, rock machine. I think you can buy a new pedal directly from Keeley with his mods.

boss metal zone MT-2 is what i use. it gets all the hair band stuff and some heavy stuff really well....
Do you know how different that is from the Boss Heavy Metal HM-2? I had that and just could not dial in a sound I liked with that one... can't put my finger on why, harsh mids I think. I'll give the MT-2 a try.

don't know about the difference, but the mids i think are controllable at least for me, i have a problem of getting to few mids and getting lost in the mix ....but thats operator error ...lol

John. I'd agre with Bagpipe. either a Keeley RAT2 or a stock "vintage" Rat. All the hair you could ever need. At super low volumes in a clean amp you can jack up the DIST knob above 12:00 and it sounds like a Raging Marshall stack. But at higher amp volumes with the natural amp overdrive happening the trick is to keep the DIST knob low. say 8:00-10:00. Also the tone (filter) knob can get very bright very quickly. dont be afraif to wind it way down (which on a RAT is backwards. CW=less treble. CCW=more treble.

the Metal ZOne mentioned is good if you want more "death" metal scooped-mid tones. but I dont think its what you are looking for. I could be wrong.

-hal

I've been on the same quest and I've narrowed it down to either the G2D Morpheus or the Boss MT-2.

I tried the MT-2 again the other day and the cool things I really liked about it are the sweepable mid control (like a parametric e.q.), and the fact that it a TON of bass on tap if you want/need it.

Keeley has a mod for the MT-2 to make the e.q. even more musical, make the pedal quieter (although it's pretty quiet bone stock), and give it more headroom and punch. I've found them used for cheap, so buying one used and then getting the Keeley mod shakes out dollar-wise almost the same as buying a brand new MT-2.

I'm pretty sure that's the way I'm going to jump. :twisted:

i run a RAT also but i use it more for OD tones just beyond breakup, yeah the MT2 is a tighter distortion and i scoop out the mids a lil ....i put a Vodka Mod in my RAT and i like it a lot better than i did, but i always felt that it got muddy easy there are maybe 3 to 4 more mods i can do with that kit ...i.e. resistor changes and diode changes it's worth looking into and the mods are reversible and cheap ....
http://www.vodkamods.com/main.html

A Visual Sounds Jekyll & Hyde?

One side's tube-screamer-ish, the other's Rat-ish. You can switch between the two, or combine them for more gain-y goodness.

I find it a little touchy to set up, but once you've got it tweaked to your liking, it's a very nice pedal...

With Fender amps, the best sounding dedicated distortion box I've played is the BJFE Dyna Red. Very touch-sensitive and dynamic, great tone that cuts a live mix quite well, cleans up fairly well from the guitar, as distorto boxes go. Unfortunately, it's obscenely expensive. I bought mine used at a nice price. As much as I dig it, I doubt I could justify current list price.

If you run an amp with ample headroom, Barber Direct Drive SS is very solid high gain box at a nice price. With pushed amps, I found that it got lost in a live mix.

HAO Rust Driver is a "plexi-in-a-box", but the high end was too harsh for my ears (no tone control on board).

Fulltone Distortion Pro had sort of a fizzy, transistor-y character that began to fatigue my ears after a while, so down the road it went. Cuts a mix very nicely though.

In the budget category, the venerable ProCo RAT has been a solid contender for decades. It just needs to be set per halouis' above recommendations. The stock orange BOSS DS-1 sounds like butt to me, but some of the modded versions sound much more organic and "amp-like".

I've never considered a Tone Bone, due to size and power requirements. Most Tone Bone guys favor the "Classic" over the Hot British (which is the more compressed of the two).

Carl Martin Plexitone looks interesting, but is large.

No experience with these, but high gainers that consistently get high marks from users include Emma Reezafratzitz (what kinda name is that?!), PedalworX Dirty Angel and Neo Drive, and Menatone King of the Britains.

I've got a Pro-Co Rat and I use it for my main overdrive/distortion. I set the distortion around 8:00 and it sounds great. Again though, that's for more of an overdrive sound. Whenever I go past 10:00 with the distortion knob it does get really heavy sounding, but it's also very muddy and not very musical IMHO. I had a Keeley Rat and it made the mud factor even worse. I do have a Keeley Modded DS-1 that does the heavy stuff really well and it doesn't get muddy.

I have an older Boss Heavey Metal pedal that I used for a couple songs way back in the late 80's early 90's. I'm not a distortion fan but I needed a unit at the time and this one was actually pretty good and the eq knobs on this pedal really worked well. I didn't use it again for at least 10 years and just for the heck of it I bought up to Analog Mike while picking up a new pedal. The mod worked out great because the sound of the guitar is more present through the disrortion and the distortion itself sounds more like amplifier generated distortion... definately more full bodied. I was actually more impressed with the Heavy Metal Pedal mod than the Boss Super Overdrive mod.

YRMV, good luck.

Big Muff Pi...well, the reissue anyway. Gets all the hair you need, and the eq is straight forward and simple. Volume, tone and gain.

Believe it or not I just traded my old Dunlop wah for a Boss DS-1. I really need this pedal for single note lead stuff, and in trying out a few I actually kinda dig this lil guy. I have a Love Pedal fuzz50 for the gainier rhythm stuff, so I think this should do it... honestly I was goosing the DS-1 with a Boss GE-7 EQ as a solo boost, WOW... it was pretty impressive... the EQ really filled out the sound, added sustain and volume... seems to be just what I'm looking for.... without spending a fortune. I'm getting the DS-1 on trade and I'll snag a GE-7 off of Ebay (Unless one of you guys has one you want to let go of!)

Thanks for the responses!